| GENUS PEDIGREE: |
Gremlins (mythical Imps of Misfortune). |
| KNOWN ALIASES: |
Gremlin Gus. |
| KNOWN RELATIVES: |
unknown |
| KNOWN PETS: |
unknown
|
| CITIZENSHIP: |
Cloud castles of the wartime skies.
|
| KNOWN CONFIDANTS: |
Fifinella (female gremlin); Flipperty-Gibbets (girl gremlins); Widgets (boy gremlins). |
| KNOWN RIVALS: |
Human pilots and their air-machines.
|
| PARAPHERNALIA: |
Various gadgets used to cause machines to malfunction. |
|
|
| 1st PRINT APPEARANCE: |
"Walt Disney's Comics & Stories" #34 (1939) featured the first "Gremlins" tale by Walt Kelly; "Disney's Gremlins" was originally written and illustrated by their creator Roald Dahl, and published as a book in 1942). This book is now very rare to find and a major collector's item. |
| 1st FILM APPEARANCE: |
none (see: Historical Facts).
|
| VOICE ACTOR: |
N/A
|
| SIGNATURE: |
unknown
|
| BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS: |
A gremlin is "an imp of bad luck to whom disasters are attributed in the roaring kingdom of the wartime sky" (London Observer). These popular W.W.II critters were created by Roald Dahl while a flight lieutenant in the British Royal Air Force, in a draft called "Gremlin Lore." References to gremlins preceded Dahl as far back as the 1920s, and RAF aviators blamed these mythical creatures for inexplicable mechanical failures during the Battle of Britain. Gremlins mythology became a media sensation and piqued Walt Disney¼s interest, whereupon he purchased the rights to the critters. While most of the Gremlin comic strips were usually one-page gags and were only generally about Gremlins, occassionally the stories featured a specific Gremlin by the name of "Gremlin Gus." |
| HISTORICAL FACTS: |
A film was planned in 1942, but making the Gremlins appear sympathetic and comic while performing acts of sabotage proved an insurmountable task, and public became so tired of these overblown creatures, that the project was eventually dropped. |
| LITTLE KNOWN SECRETS: |
Roald Dahl was a prolific writer of children's stories after the war, and some of his other famous books are "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Matilda," "James and the Giant Peach" and the "Big Friendly Giant." All of which have been translated to film. It is unfortunate that the Gremlins film fizzled, even though the likenesses of Gremlins and Fifinellas became icons for W.W.II military insignia (as did nearly ALL of Disney's cartoon characters that had come into existence). |
| WORKING THEORIES: |
none |
The Gremlins 